document, which was given to the youth
by his dying uncle and destined for the Emperor. As Conrad reads it,
he learns that this youth is the child, he would have had killed years
ago and who was carried to the forester-house and brought up there.
The Emperor and his wife thank Heaven that they have been spared so
dreadful a sin, but Conrad, afraid of the prophesy, determines to send
the young man, who is called Junker Heinz, away. He gives him a
document, in which he orders Count Gerold, governor of Speier, to give
his daughter to the three ambassadors of the Emperor of Byzantium.

In the second act we see Agnes, the Emperor's daughter, working and
singing with her damsels. She is well guarded by old Hiltrudis, but
the worthy lady is obliged to leave for some days and departs with many
exhortations. Hardly has she gone, than all the working-material
disappears, and the maidens begin to sing and frolic. The appearance
of Junker Heinz frightens them away. Heinz, who has ridden long,
thinks to take a little rest, now that he sees the towers of Speier
before {167} him. He stretches himself on a mossy bank and is soon
asleep.--Shortly afterwards the Princess Agnes peeps about with her
companion Bertha. She is highly pleased with the appearance of the
strange hunter, and seeing him asleep, she gazes at him, until she
insensibly falls in love with him. Observing the document which the
stranger has in his keeping, she takes and reads it, and disgusted with
its contents throws it into the fountain, quickly fetching another
parchment which was once given to her by her father, and which contains
both permission to wish for something and her father's promise to grant
her wish.

When Heinz awakes, and finds the loveliest of the maidens beside him,
he falls as deeply in love as the young lady, but their tender
interview is soon interrupted by the blowing of hunter's horns.

In the third act Count Gerold, who has come with a suite, to accompany
the Princess on a hunt, is presented with the Emperor's document by
Heinz, who cannot read and who is wholly ignorant of the change which
Agnes has made. Though greatly astonished at the Emperor's command to
wed Agnes to the bringer of his letter, Count Gerold is accustomed to
obey, and Heinz, who first refuses compliance with the strange command,
at once acquiesces, when he sees that his lady-love and the Princess
are one and the same person. About to go to church, they are detain